redegg's Journal

Loose wedding rings, long fingernails, and Plato
Nov 09 2009 10:45

Well, I'm still losing, slowly.  My weight is bouncing around a bit, but I'm still feeling motivated.  I ate too many calories this weekend, but I'm feeling good about eating better today.  When I got to work, I noticed that my wedding ring is so loose it feels like it could fall off, along with my watch that now fits like a loose bracelet.  I've been thinking about the need to have both resized, which makes me feel good about the weight I've lost.

I came up with a recipe this weekend for chickpea curry salad to eat when I have a craving for a really substantial sandwich.  Before I went vegan I loved chicken curry sandwiches, and the chickpea version is a very good substitute. Even Chris liked it!  I did use a bit too many onions, but I'm determined now to perfect the recipe so I can submit it for a vegetarian recipe contest sometimes.

Interestingly, in addition to the weight loss, I've been gaining some control over another bad habit - picking my fingernails.  It's a habit that's been with me since I was a little kid, and it has honestly bothered me just as much as my weight.  It's discouraging to always have yucky fingernails and to feel so unable to control the urge to pick them.  Somewhere along the line last month I noticed that they were getting longer, and that I wasn't picking them quite as much.  So I started to pay attention and have been doing much better about leaving them alone. 

Last night I was going over this in my mind.  Why should I be successful at stopping this habit when I've tried SO many other times over the years, just like with weight loss?  I decided that unconsciously, I've been applying the same mindset to my finger-picking habit that I've been applying to my overeating habit.  One failure doesn't mean that I'm off the wagon.  It only means that I have to try harder next time.

For food, having a bad day means, well, that I had a bad day.  Not that I'm out of control, not that I'm a bad person, not that I might as well give up because I've ruined all of my effort.  I now feel more like a person who has a healthy diet who sometimes eats unhealthily instead of a person who eats unhealthily who occasionally tries to lose weight.

Same goes with the fingernails.  I'm thinking of myself as a person who has good fingernail grooming and beautiful nails who occasionally breaks one than someone who picks their nails to nubs and occasionally tries to stop.

Its funny that moving so much mental furniture can yield such changes. Philosophically, I suppose it shouldn't come as such a surprise to me, but it's been a long time since I've read Plato and the neo-Platonists who wrote about these very kinds of mindshifts.